


From Russia With Mild Sympathy

by Inrainbowz



Series: In Any Other World - Malec AU Collection [15]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Communication, First Meetings, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Light Angst, M/M, Russia, Russian!Alec, bc why not, or lack of it, speaking different languages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 02:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12521052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inrainbowz/pseuds/Inrainbowz
Summary: 29. Airport AU58. Speak different languages AUMagnus is stuck in one of Moscow's airport trying to get home to his injured friend. Alec is going back from visiting his family and comes to the rescue despite some communication issues. And then, well. Things get cute.





	From Russia With Mild Sympathy

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah I'm cheating, combining two AUs. I do what I want. Still drawing from [that list](http://jadeandonyx.tumblr.com/post/114779420062/fanfiction-prompts), although I'm have almost done all the ones I liked. I'm still working out he Arranged Marriage AU that I promised forever ago and is going to follow some of its predecessors' path in being stupidly long. 
> 
> So, this is drawn partly from experience, partly from friends' stories, and partly from nowhere. I actually wrote it while I was spending the night in Warsaw Airport on my way from Moscow to Paris. I had fun trying to give Alec a foreign way of speaking english but it's not meant to be spot on. My russian friends either spoke great english or no english at all haha. As it is I don't mean to offend anyone by the situation depicted in here. As I said, they are inspired by real life. I spent a year in Russia and I had a great time. I like it. I just wanted to write something about the struggle of being stranded in a foreign country. 
> 
> Also title is from a magnet I bought in a museum in Moscow, "From Russia with Apathy and Indifference".
> 
> Anyway, enjoy!

Magnus was seconds away from crying, so for the sake of his remaining dignity, he decided to step away from the desk and stop arguing with the young, bored employee of the airline ticket office. Well, arguing wasn’t the right word, since she kept answering in Russian, despite him stating with his very limited knowledge of the language that his knowledge of it was, well, very limited. Then again, he kept trying to talk to her in English despite her void skills on the matter, so he couldn’t blame her.

Except he could, because he was desperate and tired, and on the verge of tears, or maybe crying already, he couldn’t even tell, but his vision was blurred and his eyes burning, it had to be a sign.

“Dammit,” he cursed, pinching the bridge of his nose hard and closing his eyes, willing the tears away. He was a grown fucking man. He could endure being stranded in a foreign airport with an urgent need to leave and no means to explain it. He could.

“Всё хорошо? Есть проблема? “

He turned toward the voice that had just sputtered more nonsense at him and came face to face with a young man, looking sympathetic enough that in other circumstances, Magnus would have been grateful, especially seeing how uncomfortable he looked, probably making a great effort to address him. Instead he felt frustrated and annoyed, and since he only got the word “problema” from the man’s question, he answered angrily, “my fucking problem is that no one speaks a fucking word of fucking English in this fucking country.”

Maybe he ought to try in Indonesian. The man frowned and out of the corner of his eyes he could see the woman do the same. “Fuck” was too international of a word really.

“I just need to book a seat on the next flight to London,” he pleaded tiredly to no one in particular. “I told her that I didn’t need an exchange, I don’t care about losing my other ticket, I don’t care about the price. She won’t sell it to me and I don’t know why.”

He felt bad for lashing out on a guy that was just trying to help. Well since he probably didn’t get a word of that, he couldn’t get offended. He couldn’t help either.

The man turned to the airport employee and they started talking rapidly in Russian while Magnus considered simply walking west until he found the Atlantic Ocean.

“Is not that she don’t want to change billet, but plane tonight that you ask is full. Next is tomorrow, she ask if you want him.”

Magnus blinked stupidly at the young man, so surprised to hear English – albeit approximate and heavily accented – that he needed a second to understand his words. He then proceeded to flush deeply in embarrassment, realizing that the man had been privy to his little outburst after all.

“I… that’s… thank you. I’m so sorry. Thank you.”

“You want or not?”

“No, no, yes, I do, I do, please…”

The stranger transmitted his agreement to the woman. “Паспорт”, she demanded. He quickly handed her his passport and they were left standing awkwardly side by side while she took care of the order.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus said again, feeling the need to justify himself. “I swear I’m not normally like this.”

The man nodded but his expression remained skeptical. Magnus sighed. “It’s just… it’s an emergency.”

“Something happen?”

“One of my closest friends had an accident this morning,” Magnus confessed out of the blue, suddenly unable to keep it to himself any longer. He had just said “family emergency” to his colleagues when he had bailed out of the conference room earlier in the afternoon. “It’s… pretty serious. They don’t know… The next few days are crucial, hours even, he could…”

Magnus stopped, unwilling to start crying again in front of his savior who remained, in fact, a complete stranger. He couldn’t say it anyway, couldn’t even articulate the thought. The sole idea of Raphael actually killing himself with that stupid bike of his like they had warned him would happen a thousand times was more than he could bear. Rafael wasn’t a mere friend to him. They had shouldered the worst together, the boy – now man – was a little brother to Ragnor and him.

He couldn’t die. It wasn’t possible, it wasn’t fair.

Lost in his painful thoughts, Magnus vaguely registered the man’s surprised expression and that he started talking to the airport woman again, Angels knew what about. Magnus couldn’t even tell by their expression – Russians, he had found, were impossible to read.

“She’s not charging for extra luggage,” the man said abruptly, pointing at his two large suitcases, “and she… wish? Wish your friend live until you are here.”

Magnus blinked at him, completely taken aback. He turned back toward the woman. She had the same severe, angry look that she had a few minutes ago, as she ran his credit card and handed him back his passport, so much that he wondered if the man was having him. But no, the receipt confirmed that she had indeed foregone the extra charges, despite his ticket stating that he had two luggage to register.

“Th-Thank you. Спасибо, спасибо. “

It was pretty much all he could say in Russian. She waved him off like it was nothing, without a smile but with a tiny nod that he took as a form of acknowledgment, before turning back to her computer, effectively dismissing them. Magnus looked at his ticket, still confused about how exactly he had come to have it. The boarding time was set at 7:15 in the morning. It was now 9 pm.

He sighed heavily before addressing his savior one last time. “Thank you again for your help, I apologize for being so rude. Really, thank you.”

“No problem. You look for hotel?”

Magnus hadn’t gone that far into thinking. He looked around him. Terminal E of the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow was a fairly mundane airport terminal, with shops, desks, and haggard traveling people dragging suitcases around, looking lost. He didn’t know what to do. The prospect of getting a cab, finding a hotel and getting a room, just for lying awake and worried sick on a bed for a few hours was enough to make him want to cry again.

"I don't know," was all he could answer. The man looked sideway, probably pondering on his escape route to get the hell away from the mess that Magnus was, but instead of making a break for it, he let out an exasperated sigh and pulled on Magnus's sleeve.

“Come.”

“Wh-What?”

“Just come.”

He turned to leave. Magnus followed.

.

The man led him through custom and passport control. Magnus was going to have a nervous breakdown if asked one more angry question in Russian, but thankfully most of the staff on this side of the airport knew at least a few English words, if only to say “take off your shoes” and “come forward”. For the rest, he blindly followed his guide.

Soon enough they were surrounded by duty-free shops and rows upon rows of uncomfortable looking metal chairs full of waiting passengers.

Magnus trailed behind the stranger until the far end of the terminal. There, facing the last gate, was a less busy corner with chairs that looked slightly more welcoming, next to a half-empty coffee shop. The man settled on a seat close to a power outlet and made a sign for Magnus to join him.

“This is best place to sleep here,” he explained, looking pleased with himself.

“You’re used to it,” Magnus stated.

“Да. Always have stop here when I visit my family. Long transit, cheap billet.”

That made sense.

“Visiting where? And where from?”

“East Siberia. Baikal. And I study in Germany. German is better than English.”

Spotting Magnus’s confused look at the statement, the man frowned a little before correcting, “my German. Better than my English. I speak better German. Sorry.”

Magnus nodded. The conversation came to an awkward pause until Magnus realized something.

“So, what’s you’re name? Huh, как вас завут?”

He had tried to pick up a little Russian during his stay, but all the meetings and presentations were conducted in English, and the foreigners stuck to themselves, something he was self-conscious about now. The man laughed a quiet, short laugh that barely moved his face, but softened his eyes.

“Alec. Short for Alexander. But you can say “тебя” to me. Ah… you don’t have that in English right? Different you.”

Magnus struggled to grasp at the little Russian he knew and remembered, quite randomly, his French lessons from college.

“Ah, yeah, formal and informal. It’s no easy to figure out.”

“English is hard too. What is your name?”

Magnus extended a hand.

“Magnus Bane.”

“You from England?”

“Yes, I live in London.”

“I want to go one day. You like it?”

Magnus was a bit caught off guard by the question and took time to think about it. Did he like busy, ever moving London? Sometimes he hated it, sometimes he couldn’t imagine a better place to live.

“Yeah, I guess. It can be overwhelming, but I like to keep busy. All my friends are there too.”

Mentioning his friends brought his mind back to his current preoccupation. He grimaced. Alec shot him a sympathetic look.

“Is a very good friend?”

“Yeah. We’ve known each other for years, more than half of our lives. It’s my job to look after him.”

Magnus rubbed his face, suddenly tired and worn down. “I told him this damn bike would be the death of him.”

Alec raised a confused eyebrow.

“Is not bike fault.”

“Do you drive one?”

“Конечно. All sort of… two wheels machina. My birth town, every kid do it, best way of moving. And in Germany they have the… fast roads.”

“Highways?”

“Yes! No limit speed.”

This seemed to please the young man immensely. Magnus made a face.

“What’s the appeal? I don’t get it.”

“You ever go with friend?”

“Hell no.”

“Maybe you do that, and you see.”

“Well, that’s if he ever can ride one again!”

The man backed off, frowning. “Sorry. Sorry.”

Magnus crossed his arms and retreated into his jacket, unwilling to keep the conversation going. He saw Alec shrug out of the corner of his eyes and get a beaten up paperback from his bag. The young man clearly had more chill than Magnus and he felt kind of bad. Alec had been nothing but helpful, lifesaving really, and Magnus had had some experience in the past few weeks with the bluntness of Russian people. He meant no harm and Magnus being on edge was no excuse for being so rude.

The book was in Russian and he couldn’t make out the title, but he could decipher the author.

“Tolstoy?” he asked, willing to mend fences. “Like… War and Peace Tolstoy?”

Alec chuckled. It was adorable. “No. I, huh, I fought with his books in high school. This is for pleasure. It’s old fantastic book, another Tolstoy.”

“Is it good?”

“Not too bad. I like very old fantastic. Ah, science fiction. Is funny how they view the world before. They make movie in… year twenty, first like this, but now I read it and I’m not sure they read the book before they make the movie.”

“It’s true for most adaptations.”

They laughed a little and managed to launch into a conversation about the merits of certain book adaptations. Magnus could tell Alec was passionate about the subject and the limitation of the language frustrated him at times, preventing him from truly developing his point. Not to mention when he got excited his English would get less and less understandable until he would inevitably slip into Russian, at which point he would stop to talk abruptly and stutter a guilty apology.

It was incredibly endearing.

The conversation drifted to the merits of watching movies in the original version versus the out-of-this-world experience of watching Russian dubbings. Magnus had tried it one night with his colleagues when they had stumbled upon Back to the Future on TV at the hotel. Watching one of his favorite childhood movies with two Russian voices – one male, one female – monotonously reading dialogue lines on top of the English ones would remain one of the best memories of this trip. Probably aided by the fact that they were not exactly sober at the time.

Alec could relate to the feeling, having discovered most of American classics that way when he was younger. They naturally drifted to the topic of adapting to a different language, culture, and country.

“How do you like Germany then?” Magnus asked. “I’ve never been there.”

“I like it. I love a lot Berlin. Is very not rich. Huh… not… ah! Expensive. Lot of young people, music, art. And lot of different people too. I can…”

Alec got quiet all of a sudden, seemingly lost in thoughts. He looked around him but the hour was getting late and they were almost alone in the area. He was quieter when he picked up.

"You can be like you want. No judgment."

“Is it not the case where you come from?”

Alec let out a humorless laugh. “No.”

He seemed to catch up with the bitterness of his tone because he tried to soothe it with a smile, even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Is not like I… I love my birth town. I do. I miss every day and I wish I live there but… small city in Russia you can’t be… you can’t be lot of things.”

Magnus could guess what he was building up to. He was much tamer at work than he was in his spare time, but still no one could miss the light makeup, the colorful additions to his suits and the streak of colors in his hair. In London no one blinked twice at him but in Moscow he had felt a bit more self-conscious, and he understood that the contrast between big cities and small country towns was even sharper in Russia than it was in England.

“Will you stay in Germany then?”

“If I can, or in other Europe country. Is not easy with visa and paper, but I can’t go back. I like to be free.”

“I know what you mean.”

They shared a look heavy with meaning that confirmed to Magnus that they were on the same page on this. Being a queer child in the London suburbs hadn’t been especially fun, and he couldn’t imagine how it could be in a small town lost in Russian wilderness.  The country wasn’t exactly at the forefront of the fight for equality.

There was a lull in the conversation, but there was also a new understanding between them that made them feel closer to each other than a few minutes ago. Alec seemed like a strong person to Magnus, someone who lived by his choices and endured life without complaints, and even if it obviously hurt him to be cast aside like this, he didn’t look angry or sad, just accepting. Determined to keep going.

He was interrupted in this line of thought by his phone ringing. He almost fell from his chair in his haste to answer it, the smiling face of Catarina on the screen filling him with equal hope and dread.

“Yeah, Cat?”

"Hey, Magnus. How are you? Did you manage to get a plane?"

“Not until tomorrow morning. I’ll reach you by midafternoon. How is… How are things?”

He couldn’t ask how Raphael was. He knew Raphael wasn’t okay, he didn’t need to hear it.

“Still critical. We… we don’t know.”

Cat was a nurse and he trusted her to be transparent with him. If she said they didn’t know, she meant it, as in the doctors and medical staff didn’t know, not as in “we don’t want to destroy the hopes of the patient’s relatives just yet”. It was still discouraging. 

“Okay. Okay. I’ll do the best I can. I’ll be there, I swear, so…”

So what? Wait for me? But it wasn’t up to anybody. Raphael was fighting for his life, on his own, and if he lost, it wouldn’t be with any considerations to Magnus’s personal feelings. He had never felt more useless and powerless in his life.

“We’ll be waiting. Let me know when you take off? And land? I’ll try to send a friend to fetch you at Heathrow.”

“Yeah, okay. I will. Keep me posted yeah? If there is any change…”

If there is any bad news…

“Of course. Try to sleep, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you.”

The call disconnected and he was left to stare blankly at the bright screen. He was gripped with the sudden and absurd urge to dial Raphael’s number. He had a brief fantasy where the boy would answer like nothing was amiss, and all of this will have just been a horrible misunderstanding or a bad dream. But he would just get his friend’s voicemail and what if it was the last he heard from him?

He let go of the phone as if it had burnt him. Alec was looking at him with great concern.

“Any news?”

“Not really. We still don’t know.”

He didn’t want to start crying again. His face was already a mess, his skin red and itchy, and his head hurt. But the tears were already gathering in his eyes and overflowing no matter how hard he closed them. A strong hand gripped his shoulder and he turned to look at the blurry lines of Alec’s face.

“You have to hold on. Всё будет хорошо.”

The Russian catchphrase startled a laugh out of Magnus’s mouth. It sounded closer to a sob but it still made him smile. Alec looked confused.

“Sorry it’s… I heard this… kinda shitty pop song on the radio. I think that was the chorus.”

Alec smiled, a bit sheepish. “Yeah, means “everything will be fine.” Is not really a Russian thing to say, often is… ah, like joke but… Ironic!”

“What would Russians say?”

“Nothing will be fine but there is fuck to do about it so keep walking and shut up. Maybe.”

Magnus needed a few seconds to assess the man but yes, he was completely serious. They burst out laughing.

“That’s strangely uplifting,” Magnus commented. He could get behind that kind of reasoning, and it was true that he could do shit and that nothing, including crying and lamenting, would be any help to Raphael. His friend would sure mock him for being so emotional. He could almost hear the younger man, with his face blank and his eyes judging, “what, were you worried?”

Magnus would give him hell, but later, later.

“I’m glad I make you laugh.”

Shit, that boy was too good to be true.

“I think I’ll try to get some sleep,” Magnus said because he was a coward and considered cute and gentle guys to be a threat to his well-being. The fear was justified considering his dating history but it still sucked at times.

“Okay,” Alec answered without missing a beat, so maybe Magnus was reading too much into it. “Don’t worry I watch your things.”

“You don’t want to sleep?” Magnus asked, surprised. Alec shrugged.

“I can’t sleep in place like that. Too much people and noise. Is okay, I know it. Sleep.”

Magnus was exhausted but it felt wrong to leave the boy alone to his insomnia. Alec had done so much for him today, he couldn’t have him watch over his sleep too.

“I can stay awake a little while longer, I’m not that tired.” Alec made a face that showed how little he believed that.

“No need.”

“I kinda do. Besides, I like talking to you.”

Magnus had talked without thinking, and he almost regretted it seeing how Alec ducked his head and… blushed. It was light, barely visible, but it was clearly there.

“Хорошо. Спасибо.”

“You’re welcome.”

They talked some more, but despite his words, Magnus only managed to fight off sleep for another hour. He didn’t even remember falling asleep. He startled awake when a hand shook his shoulder lightly, and after a brief moment of panic where he couldn’t remember where he was or why, he recognized the concerned, tired-looking face of Alec in his field of vision.

“Huh. Hello.”

“Добрoе утро. Boarding for you is half hour. Maybe you buy coffee and food before.”

Magnus agreed sleepily, touched by the attention. He fought off an embarrassed blush when he noticed he was draped in Alec’s jacket. The man took it back without a comment, but he was avoiding Magnus’s eyes.

“Did you sleep at all?” Alec shook his head negatively. “I’m sorry I abandoned you.”

“Is fine.”

He said that but he looked exhausted, and his English was slipping, his accent even more pronounced than the night before. Magnus gathered his things blearily, taking vague notice of the airport coming back to life with the rising of the sun, the start of a new day. He didn’t have any messages or missed calls – no evolution then. Given the situation, it was not such a bad thing. No news is good news or whatever.

“I’ll follow your advice. Do you want anything?”

“Нет, нет, is okay…

“Alec. Please. Let me at last buy you a cup of coffee.”

He looked like he was going to protest again, but his exhaustion won in front of Magnus’s determined gaze.

“Many sugars please,” he asked instead.

They finished their bad and too hot cup of coffee just as the passengers were called for Magnus’s flight. He had a few more minutes before he needed to get in line too. He needed to thank Alec again, to say goodbye, but a strange silence had taken over the duo and they didn’t seem to know how to break it. The bright light of the morning sun was banishing the stillness and surreal feel of that night, bringing them back to the real world. Magnus’s mind was already far away, back in England, by his friend’s side. This strange interlude was over.

The line was dwindling in front of his boarding gate. He got up, shouldered his messenger bag, and still didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t just leave like this, but he couldn’t speak either. Alec looked unsure, less confident than he had been all night.

“Well. I’m off then,” Magnus said lamely, cursing his sudden lack of eloquence. “Thank you again. For everything. I owe you big time.”

“No problem. I…” Alec struggled for his words. “The… the situation is no good but… I’m happy we meet. I hope for your friend.”

“Thank you. Really, I don’t know what I would have done without you. Thank you.”

He was going to ask for his number, or give him his, or anything really, but the loud call for the last passenger to board made them both jump and stopped him in his track.

“You go,” Alec said. Magnus agreed dumbly and turned to hurry up toward his gate.

The boarding passed in a blur – the check for his passport, the hunt for his seat, the battle with the overhead compartment. Before he knew it the hostesses were beginning the safety rules demonstration. He tuned it out – he had heard it a dozen times.

He would be in London in less than five hours, which felt like an eternity and a half. He tried to fetch his current book from his jacket pocket and was surprised to find, beside the old metro card he was using as a bookmarker, a folded piece of paper. He opened it to find a message written in an irregular script.

_“I call my sister when you sleep. She say I take your phone and put my number, but I think is very rude, and you have code. So I do that. Because I will not when you awake. If no bad news tomorrow, maybe you use it.”_

It was followed by a phone number and signed “Алек”, Alec. Magnus couldn’t choose between smiling and crying, so he did both, and made his flight neighbor very uncomfortable.

If he wasn’t crushed with despair by the end of the day, he would fucking fly to the guy as soon as possible.

He had no idea what happened during the flight. He couldn’t tell what they had to eat or drink, what his neighbor or the hostess looked like. He was tapping his foot during landing, while exiting the plane, while waiting for his suitcase at Heathrow, and he almost decided to leave without it. He took a cab all the way from the airport to the hospital – it cost him almost half of his plane ticket, he was going to make Raphael pay, for sure.

He knew that there would be no need for words. As soon as he would see Catarina’s face, he would know, even before she would open her mouth. So he was frantically looking around him, trying to find his way in the busy hospital. She had been working there for years and he had visited her many times, but he was still getting lost each and every time.

“Magnus!”

Seemed like she had spotted him first. He froze, hesitating. He turned very slowly, both fearful and hopeful, wanting and dreading to see her face. He saw her walking briskly towards him in the corridor.

She was smiling.

He started breathing again.

.

Alec was waiting anxiously at the passenger exit, scanning the crowd for a well-known face, until he finally spotted Magnus wheeling two suitcases and smiling brightly.

“Привет!”

“Привет любимый.”

**Author's Note:**

> Last words translate by "Hello! Hello, my love". Yeah, I'm a sucker for happy endings, as some of my works will prove and others will refute completely. The russian is from my own knowledge but I'm far from fluent. As always you can find me on [tumblr](http://inrainbowz.tumblr.com). Thank you for reading, please show some sort of support if you liked it, bye!


End file.
